Team DEVIN

DEvelopment and Validation of biomarkers in MRI and Nuclear medicine (DEVIN)

Scientific Objective

The objective of DEVIN team is to develop neuroimaging tools that can be used in clinical and cognitive brain research and, ultimately, in clinical practice. Improving the diagnosis of neurological diseases, in particular that of neurodegenerative diseases, as well as assessing early response to therapy, especially for brain tumors, is indeed at the core of neuroimaging development. Imaging and quantitative image analyses are key to evidence based medicine and the development of minimally-invasive patient-centred care. Accordingly, DEVIN team project aims at expanding translational novel image based research to clinical practice by developing clinically relevant neuroimaging based methodologies. During past years, the team 1 of Unit 825 (former unit 1214) developed several MRI approaches as (e.g. cortical thickness measurement, iron brain quantification) and also in molecular imaging (AV45, NMDA). On the one hand, the projects of DEVIN team aim to continue developing innovative tools (e.g. multimodal structural-functional MRI, multimodal neuroimaging canine model, Tau protein marker). On the other hand, we aim to explore new applications for neuroimaging biomarkers to validate their utility in various clinical domains (parkinsonian syndromes, neuro-oncology, psychiatry) for which we have developed since many years our expertise. The clinical validation step is crucial for translational neuroimaging to evaluate the sensitivity to pathological changes. The feasibility of our project is guaranteed by access to the facilities offered by the new neuro-imaging platform of our Unit that includes in particular a Philips 3T Achieva MRI dedicated to research, by a large access to the PET Center of the Toulouse university hospital coordinated by Pr. Pierre Payoux, team DEVIN member, and finally by the opening in 2012 of the “Pôle de Neurosciences Cliniques” of the hospital, all of these facilities being concentrated on Purpan’s hospital site.